Tuesday, August 16, 2011

SIGNS OF SPRING, 2010

The Northern Hemisphere once more begins its tilt towards the Sun, awakening flowers, ushering in new life, and coaxing people outdoors once again. The changing of the season is easily observed in gardens, parks, zoos, farms, festivals and more. Collected here are a handful of photographs showing signs of Spring, 2010, as the final remnants of last winter start to melt away.

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A five-week-old Chinchilla rabbit nibbles grass at a rabbit farm in Moosburg north of Munich March 22, 2010. The rabbits at the farm are bred to compete in rabbit shows.

Flowers are seen in Carlsbad, north of San Diego, California, March 29, 2010. The nearly fifty acres of Giant Tecolote Ranunculus flowers that make up The Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch are in a full bloom for approximately six to eight weeks each year, from early March through early May.

A beekeeper holds up a comb of honeybees on the outskirts of Hefei, Anhui province, China on April 5, 2010. The beekeeper is part of a group from Shandong province who travel across China from south to north with their honeybees as they follow the time of flowering.

A lamb is given shelter from cold weather in the kitchen of a farm house near Cushendun, County Antrim, Northern Ireland on April 2, 2010. Severe weather in Northern Ireland has resulted in farmers losing large numbers of newly born lambs and thousands of homes left without electricity.

In this March 21, 2010 photo, Avery Smith, 23, of White River Junction, Vt., makes her first attempt at pond skimming during the the fourth annual end of season Junk Show at Whaleback Mountain in Enfield, New Hampshire.

Anya Deutsch, almost 3 years old, keeps up with her sister Elsa in an Easter egg hunt at their grandparents house on April 4th, 2010 in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. The two wore rubber rain boots because the ground was still wet and spongy from recent rains.

Iraqi Kurds celebrate the Nowruz spring festival with fireworks in the Kurdish town of Akra in Iraq's Mosul region, 500 kms north of Baghdad, on March 20, 2010. The Persian new year, which coincides with the vernal (Spring) equinox, is a Zoroastrian tradition celebrated by Iranians and Kurds.

Sophie Olson makes her way through the tulip fields of the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn, Oregon on Saturday, March 27, 2010. The 25th Anniversary Tulip Fest opened Thursday March 25 and will run through April 25.

The top of the Washington Monument is through one of the cherry trees in the Washington Monument grove on April 2, 2010 in Washington, DC. The Japanese Government gave 3,800 Yoshino trees to Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Johnson, as gifts for her beautification of Washington project in 1965.

A tourist uses her Blackberry to snap a picture of the cherry blossoms as she tours the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, April 1, 2010 during the National Cherry Blossom Festival.